Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a card reader for receiving or passing on information furnished by or for a card, in which the card reader is embodied such that it can be mounted on a printed circuit board by being mechanically and electrically connected thereto.
One such card reader is known for instance from European Patent Disclosure EP 0 472 692 B1. The known card reader is intended for reading so-called SIM cards or SIM modules. SIM modules are currently used above all in mobile telephones, for identifying subscribers. "SIM" is the abbreviation for "Subscriber Identity Module". SIM modules, particularly because of their small size (25.times.15 mm), are increasingly replacing the relatively large chip cards earlier used for that purpose. The SIM module generally has on its surface a plurality of surface contacts, as a rule 6 or 8 contacts, which are precisely defined in terms of their location. The surface contacts are to be connected by the card reader to corresponding terminals of a printed circuit board on which the card reader itself is mounted to enable communications.
Although the SIM modules are relatively small and the card readers intended for them are not substantially larger, the card reader still occupies a relatively large amount of space on the printed circuit board on which it is mounted (typically using an SMT soldering process). For this reason, the printed circuit board area to be furnished must be made relatively large and is difficult to minimize. This is disadvantageous because of the constant demand for miniaturizing items of all kinds, especially in mobile phones and the like.